Lascelles Abercrombie (1881–1938)

WHEN from Eternity were separate

The curdled element

And gathered forces, and the world began,—

The Spirit that was shut and darkly blent

Within this being, did the whole distress

With a blind hanker after spaciousness.

Into its wrestle, strictly tied up in Fate

And closely natured, came like an open’d grate

At last the Mind of Man,

Letting the sky in, and a faculty

To light the cell with lost Eternity.

So commerce with the Infinite was regain’d:

For upward grew Man’s ken

And trode with founded footsteps the grievous fen

Where other life festering and prone remain’d.

With knowledge painfully quarried and hewn fair,

Platforms of lore, and many a hanging stair

Of strong imagination Man has raised

His Wisdom like the watch-towers of a town;

That he, though fasten’d down

In law, be with its cruelty not amazed,

But be of outer vastness greatly aware.

This, then, is yours: to build exultingly

High, and yet more high,

The knowledgeable towers above base wars

And sinful surges reaching up to lay

Dishonouring hands upon your work, and drag

From their uprightness your desires to lag

Among low places with a common gait.

That so Man’s mind, not conquer’d by his clay,

May sit above his fate,

Inhabiting the purpose of the stars,

And trade with his Eternity.